


love comes in many colors, and these are the ones i've seen

by blushao (horizsan)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, No Sexual Content, relationships are tagged in order of appearance, tw: mentions of emotional abuse and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24184426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horizsan/pseuds/blushao
Summary: Jihoon falls in love five times, and learns a valuable lesson each time. These lessons enable him to finally learn how to love, and do it right the sixth time.[ Loosely based off of the book of poetry "Shades of Lovers" by Catarine Hancock ]
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Kim Mingyu/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Lee Seokmin | DK, Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Wen Jun Hui | Jun
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79





	love comes in many colors, and these are the ones i've seen

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: discussion of depression in part ii. ocean blue, and mentions of emotional abuse in part iv. stormy grey. feel free to skip these parts if you are uncomfortable with either of these things, or just don't read at all. i wouldn't want to cause anyone pain without adequate warning.
> 
> note: the italicized words that aren't underlined are excerpts from the poetry book this was inspired by <3
> 
> i hope you enjoy reading this! i promise it gets happier at the end :)

_part i. ruby red_

-

_for two young hearts_

_falling in love for the first time_

_only to have one rip the other_

_apart at the seams_

-

Joshua was Jihoon’s very first love. Their love was beautiful, and sweet, and Jihoon’s mother cooed over them, and she marveled at how “gosh-darn cute” they were together like it was her job. Their love was boisterous and child-like, innocent and candied. Jihoon will never forget the way his stomach turned over and performed acrobatics when he was around Joshua, but thirteen-year-old Jihoon didn’t know that one day, those butterflies would feel more like bees, and the feeling they gave him would turn from flips and cartwheels to pure, unbridled nausea. Thirteen-year-old Jihoon was naive, and knew nothing about love, or what it could do to the heart.

One of the many things thirteen-year-old Jihoon had loved about Joshua was the way he spoke. More specifically, the way he spoke to Jihoon. When Joshua spoke to him, it was like his voice was made of velvet pillows and satin blankets and butterscotch flavored sucking candies. It was like the words he spoke were made of honey, and Jihoon couldn’t get enough of the feeling of those honey-drop words that were meant for him.

Jihoon looks back now, and thinks that he may have been more in love with the idea of Joshua than Joshua himself. He had liked Joshua for a long time before they were finally together, and he had spent a lot of time idealizing Joshua, and building up this persona for him in his head, placing the boy on a pedestal. He thinks he might have been more in love with the idea of being loved than Joshua. He might have been more in love with the saccharine way Joshua spoke to him, pouring honeyed words that he now knows were nothing but pretty lies into Jihoon’s ears like he was filling a reservoir.

But of course, thirteen-year-old Jihoon thought he was truly in love, and in it deep, in it for the long run. So he did what he thought love was. He threw his whole being into Joshua, he wrote songs about the boy, writing pages of lyrics about his glass-smooth skin and cat-like eyes. He placed his entire self-worth on Joshua, he centered his whole life around that boy. He gave Joshua everything, and when Joshua left, he took everything with him, and left Jihoon with an empty soul and a shattered heart.

Ruby red is for Jihoon’s blood, that dripped from his skin and poured from his insides when Joshua ripped his heart out of his chest.

-

_ part ii. ocean blue  _

-

_for the love that was not ready_

_and bloomed too soon_

_between a sad boy and a broken one_

_who had no idea how to fix what couldn't be_

-

Seungcheol was Jihoon’s second love, who came far too soon after Joshua left for them to end any way but tragically. But Jihoon, who was still thirteen, didn’t have the experience or the foresight to know that, so he loved anyway. Seungcheol and Jihoon had been friends, close friends, since they were around nine years old, and so it was a well-known fact to Jihoon that Seungcheol had been officially diagnosed with depression at some point during their middle school journey.

Thirteen-year-old Jihoon thought that if he loved Seungcheol enough, he could fix this. Little did he know, no one could “fix” Seungcheol. He was unfixable, partially because there was nothing to fix, as having depression doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong with you. Mental illness is just like physical illness, it’s not something to be ashamed of, and sometimes it can be fixed, sometimes it can’t. In Seungcheol’s case, there was no part of it that could be changed for the better. Think of his depression like a monster. Some monsters can be slain, while others remain immortal. Seungcheol’s depression fell into the latter category.

They loved one another, they really truly did, but their relationship was doomed to sink from the start. Jihoon wanted to be a knight in shining armor to someone who wasn’t a damsel in distress, who couldn’t be “fixed” by any human power besides his own, and Jihoon didn’t understand that. They were doomed from the very beginning, because Jihoon was broken after Joshua, and he knew that, but he refused to acknowledge that he wasn’t ready for another relationship so soon. He just wasn’t. And so their relationship sunk, but that was alright. They weren’t under the right circumstances for their love to work out, and that was okay. It hurt to separate, it hurt both of them so much more than they ever thought it could, but in the end, it was for the better, and now that they’re both older, they understand that more than they ever did as kids.

Ocean blue is for that beautiful blue boy, who was drowning in waves far too high over his head, and for that broken boy who couldn’t reach his hand to pull him out.

-

_part iii. primrose pink_

-

_for the sweetness shared_

_between these two_

_they had a love like a flower_

_it grew and blossomed and wilted_

-

Jihoon and Junhui met in a flash, and fifteen-year-old Jihoon thought they would never meet again. It had been pouring rain, and Jihoon was shivering, jogging down the sidewalk in search of shelter. Junhui ran up to him, thrust his umbrella into Jihoon’s hands, and sprinted off down the road without saying anything. Jihoon was sure he would never see the boy again.

But apparently, fate wasn’t about to keep them apart, because Jihoon ran into Junhui again at a coffee shop a week later. Their love grew like a flower in a sunshower, it grew quickly, with no concern for what the future could be. They were having fun, and they were happy, and that was all that mattered to them.

Their love blossomed, and bloomed, as though some invisible gardener were diligently watering it daily, making sure it didn’t die. But it blossomed too quickly to last. It grew fast, blossomed faster, and wilted just as speedily as it had grown.

But the wilting didn’t feel like dying. It felt like letting go, happily, to make room for something new and better. Junhui was the one who taught Jihoon that breakups don’t always have to be painful. They don’t need to be tearful, and heart-wrenching. They can be calm, and sweet, and a person can leave you without taking all of you with them, and you’ll both be just fine afterwards.

When Junhui left, he took nothing with him. He left Jihoon’s heart, self-worth, happiness, everything, right where it belonged in Jihoon’s arms. Fifteen year old Jihoon loved Junhui, and Junhui loved him too, until they didn’t anymore, and that was okay. 

Primrose pink is for mutuality, and for flowers that grow, blossom, and wilt as they need to.

-

_part iv. stormy grey_

-

_for the hurricane that wrecked_

_through his heart and soul_

_he was a boat lost at sea_

_and the other was determined to sink him_

-

When sixteen-year-old Jihoon met Mingyu at their high school’s homecoming game, he should have bolted. He should have turned around and ran, ran as fast and as far as he could until he couldn’t anymore, ran until he was long gone, and never turned back. But sixteen-year-old Jihoon didn’t run. Well, he did, but not away. He ran straight into Mingyu’s arms, and made out with him underneath the bleachers. He ran straight into Mingyu’s arms, and by the time things turned sour and Jihoon realized Mingyu didn’t actually love him and was just taking advantage of him and using him and manipulating him, he was in far too deep to leave easily.

Sixteen-year-old Jihoon was unaware of what emotional abuse was. He didn’t know that was a thing. He thought abuse was physical, hitting people, giving them black eyes when you got mad, things like that. He was unaware that there was any other kind of abuse, until they did their domestic abuse unit in health class, and he realized that some of the things Mingyu was doing to him were classified under those bold underlined words: **emotional abuse**.

Once Jihoon noticed those things, he couldn’t stop noticing them, in every conversation, every interaction he had with Mingyu. Jihoon realized he had to get out, had to get as far away as he could and never let something like this happen to him again.

So he did what he should have done right from the start, and he ran. He ran as far away as he possibly could, moving to a different city, changing his phone number, moving all his social media accounts and blocking Mingyu, even on the new ones, just to make sure he would never be able to find Jihoon again. He hoped and prayed he would never have to see Mingyu’s face ever again, and thankfully, since the day Jihoon left, he hasn’t.

Stormy grey is for cloudy days with arguments like thunder, and for Jihoon praying that one day the sun will shine through and drive those clouds away.

-

_part v. golden yellow_

-

_for the calm after the storm_

_the sun breaking through the clouds_

_a love meant to save_

_but never meant to stay_

-

When Jihoon ran from Mingyu, he ran into the warm, loving arms of a sunflower boy, who held nothing but light and warmth within his body. He ran into the open arms of a boy who grabbed his hands and pulled him along, laughing and frolicking through sunflower fields every day of the summer until they got tired and fell asleep in the shade of those very sunflowers. He ran into arms that embraced him, held him close and bathed him in a golden glow, and chased him through that sunflower field where they ran and they loved and they were happy.

Seokmin was the sun, and he poured all his light and love onto Jihoon, and Jihoon was happy, truly happy, for the first time in a long time. But the thing about the sun is that it’s gotta set sometime, whether you necessarily want it to or not. The sun is lovely while it’s with you, keeping you warm and making you laugh and smile in its glow. But it can’t stay forever. The sun needs to move on, and shed its light on someone else.

Seokmin was the sun, who had broken through the clouds that Mingyu left behind. But that was all he was meant to do. He was meant to drive the clouds away, and shine down on the ground for a while, so that the earth was ripe for new loves to take root and sprout. Seokmin was the sun, and he was never meant to be permanent. 

Golden yellow is for Seokmin, that golden boy made of sunflower petals, whose smile shone like the sun’s rays, that boy who restored light to Jihoon’s world, and set like the sun, leaving conditions perfect for a new someone.

-

_part vi. emerald green_

-

_for the planting of a sapling_

_of a love that was going to_

_take root and grow_

_and last and last and last_

-

When a nineteen-year-old Soonyoung barged his way into Jihoon’s life, Jihoon wasn’t very fond of him. At least, not at first. They did fall in love with one another eventually, but it took time. It was as if when Jihoon considered that he might have feelings for Soonyoung for the first time, he planted a seed in the earth. And every time he thought about Soonyoung with love on his mind, that seed was watered.

And that seed eventually grew into a sapling, once Jihoon finally acknowledged that he was, in fact, in love with Soonyoung; his emerald green boy who stood strong like a thick oak tree, and wouldn’t let anyone or anything scare him away from Jihoon. 

Jihoon and Soonyoung waited a long time to officially start their relationship, longer than their friends thought was necessary. But that waiting was worth it in every way, as it ensured they were both ready for it, truly ready to love one another the way they wanted to. 

The sapling of their love that they planted took root in the solid stable earth, and it grew, slowly but surely. Its roots are now so strong that no storm could uproot it, and Jihoon and Soonyoung are sure they’ll last forever. Roots that run that deep simply can’t be pulled up.

Emerald green is for sapling loves, loves that take their time, and create roots so strong no human strength could ever break them.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this! feel free to leave a comment, it would absolutely make my day ;) i love all of you <3 thank you for reading this :))


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